2010

Arrogant and Violent Moroccan Youth Gangs in Holland

By EMERSON VERMAAT

January 22, 2014 - San Francisco - PipeLineNews.org - Violent and dangerous Moroccan youth gangs are on the rise in multicultural Holland. The Dutch city of The Hague has a reputation of being a decent city where embassies and prestigious international courts such as the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court are located. It is also the city where the King of the Netherlands resides. Parliament is located here as well. But organized crime is rampant is this city, especially among second-generation Moroccan immigrants and minors. It is costing the Dutch tax payer millions of euros every year, apart from all those decent people who have been robbed and attacked by these arrogant juvenile frequent offenders. Too often, lenient judges release the offenders after a few days or weeks – and the untouchable youth gangsters are quite aware of this. They are laughing at their many powerless victims, rediculing them. The police are also quite unhappy about it.

It was on the early morning of Tuesday, January 14, that about two hundred policemen forcefully entered the homes of eleven members of a notorious Moroccan-Antillean/Surinamese youth gang in suburbs of The Hague. The gang was at least seventy-two members strong and those who were arrested – ten Moroccans and one Antillean – were considered to be dangerous hardcore members. “We allowed them to operate freely for about one year in order to gather more evidence,” Jozias van Aartsen, mayor of The Hague, told a Dutch TV reporter. “Otherwise, people will blame us when these youngsters will be released after a week.”

The mayor of The Hague knows what he is talking about. Mayors of other major cities and even some smaller cities such as Ede and Culemborg face similar problems. All too often, juvenile criminals are set free whereas their victims are terrified. A local resident who reported Moroccan juvenile offenders to the police now faces reprisals by these youth gangsters . “The neighborhood belongs to us,” they say. “No,” says Mr. Van Aartsen, “it is us who are in charge here.” They are seventeen to twenty one years old and were responsible for twenty-five burglaries. They did not hesistate to use violence inflicting physical injuries. They terrorized the neighborhood. They also committed insurance fraud.

Gang members are supported by friends and Moroccan family members. “It’s a kind of subculture here,” leading police investigator Johan van Rijn told a Dutch newspaper. “A high percentage of neighborhood youths help them telling them where to steal a lot of money.”

A Moroccan gang member named Khalid told another newspaper: ‘Fortunately our families are helping us. It’s not alway very easy, but we can often count on them when we are in trouble.”

Primitive and backward “family honor” is a central concept in Moroccan culture in particular and in Islam in general. Hiding and protecting criminals who belong to the same ethnic and religious group is not an exceptional phenomenon. Thus, these criminals can often roam freely in Dutch city neighborboods. “My friends and I determine what is going on in the neighborhood,” Khalid says. If somebody intervenes, we see to it that he is stopped and use violence if necessary.” As a result of recent arrests, gang members will now take a low profile, Khalid says. If necessary they will go to Morocco to family members. But they will be active again after some time, he says. Moreover, there eleven other dangerous youth gangs in The Hague alone. Their parents are often on welfare.

Culemborg and Amsterdam

Culemborg is a small and formerly peaceful town near Utrecht. Here, too, operated a notorious and violent Moroccan youth gang. This 40 members strong gang was responsible for two hundred burglaries in a period of just two years. They used code words when they planned a crime. “We are going to have dinner,” they said when they prepared a burglary.” They also intimidated their victims and terrorized neighborhoods. Some of these victims were so scared that they reported crimes only to the police if they could do so anonymously in order to avoid reprisals by gang members. Reprisals such as setting cars on fire or smashing windows or worse. Revenge is part of the Moroccan and Muslim honor code.

Six hardcore members are currently on trial in the city of Arnhem. They deny that they used code words when they planned something. “We were planning to have real dinners,” one of the accused claimed in the courtroom. Lying in court and in police interrogations is common practice among Moroccan criminals.

There were 7000 criminal cases against 1500 members of youth gangs in the past three years, the Amsterdam-based “De Volkskrant” reported recently. These juvenile offenders committed 10,000 crimes. Staggering figures! In April last year 34 new youth gangs were created. When police arrest members of one gang, another gang is almost instantly created.

Even Moroccan children are now involved in crime. They are following the bad examples of their elderly brothers. Recent investigations in Amsterdam show that hundreds of primary school children will later turn into violent and dangerous criminals unless somebody intervenes and stops their criminal career in its infancy. In Amsterdam alone there are 600 juvenile frequent offenders who are referred to as “top criminals.”

On June 29, 2011, an armed robbery was carried out on Brinks money transport in Amsterdam. “The robbers struck in the early morning, using explosives and automatic weapons,” Dutchnews.nl reported. “After cashing one of their two getaway cars into the A2 following a high-speed chase, the robbers threatened another driver and made off in his car.” The perpetrators prepared this spectacular robbery in neighboring Belgium. One of them was a notorious Moroccan criminal named Ali Agharbiou.

Many heavy criminals with a Moroccan background started their criminal careers when they were still minors. They did not finish high school and yet they want to make big money, drive expensive cars and spend money on pretty women.

There are drug-related gang wars going on in Amsterdam right now and the police just fail to cope with the problem. José Rodrigo Arechiga Gamboa a leading member of the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel, was recently arrested at Amsterdam-Schiphol airport. Europol issued a warning last year that Mexican drug lords are showing increasing interest in the European drug market.

The drug market in Holland and Belgium is currently controlled by Moroccan, Turkish, Antillean and native Dutch criminals. The first killing of 2014 occurred once more in Amsterdam. It was on Saturday, January 4, that a Turkish man named Aytas Göraler was the victim of an execution-style murder in Amsterdam West. Göraler carried his one and a half year old son in his arms when the killer fired his gun. His eight year old daughter also witnessed the crime. Until 2009 Göraler was the owner of the dance club The Sand. He reportedly ran that club together with Atilla Önder, a Turkish drug criminal in Amsterdam. Göraler, though, did not have a criminal record.

Immigrants from the Netherlands Antilles or so-called Antilleans also play an important role in several drug wars. They cooperate closely with Moroccan drug criminals. Gwenette Martha is a notorious Antillean criminal in Amsterdam. Martha’s Moroccan friend Najib Bouhbouh was killed in Antwerp (Belgium) on October 18, 2013.

The Australians are right

Too many immigrants from Muslim countries are involved in crime and terrorism. Militant jihadists do pose a serious threat both in the Middle East, Europe, North America and Australia. There would not be so many Muslim militants in Europe, North America and Australia if there would not have been such a massive influx of immigrants from the Muslim world. Immigration from risk countries and risk areas must be curbed. Otherwise, the free world will continue to import the violence and conflicts of the immigrants’ home countries. We will also import ever more anti-Semitism or Jew-hatred from the Muslim world. Synagogues, Jewish schools or individual Jews in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Britain have frequently been targeted by Muslim radicals.

Most of the Moroccan kids in Holland “live with families who own satellite dishes from which they watch Arab-sponsored, highly propagandistic TV,” Abigail R. Esman writes in an excellent book. There are also numerous Arab websites providing detailed instructions on bomb-making.

Hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers from risk countries seek to enter Australia and Europe now. That is why the Australians are right when they force asylum seeker boats back to Indonesia. Most refugees are from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Irak and Iran. Immigrants from Lebanon caused serious problems in Australia’s major cities in the past. Western women were harassed by Lebanese and Arab youngsters. (The same is now happening in Germany, England, France and Belgium.) The Australians also do not want too many veiled women in their streets. They do not want suburbs in major cities where oppressive religious or cultural habits and norms are imposed on those who adhere to secular or Judeo-Christian values and norms.

There were also spectacular trials in Australia against Muslim immigrants who planned terrorist attacks on Australian territory. One of them was Faheed Khalid Lodhi. This Pakistani born architect was the first to be convicted under Australia’s new anti-terrorism legislation enacted in 2005. He planned several bomb attacks. At the ruling, Justice Anthony Wheally commented that Lodhi had “the intent of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause, namely violent jihad” and to “instil terror into members of the public so that they could never again feel free from the threat of bombing in Australia.”

Emerson Vermaat is an investigative reporter in the Netherlands specialized in crime and terrorism. Website: www.emersonvermaat.com.

Trouw/De Verdieping, January 17, 2014, p. 2, 3 (“Deze jongens denken dat ze heersen op straat”). Quote from a local resident who reported a crime to the police and was subsequently intimidated by Moroccan gang members (“uitgescholden, bespuugd en bedreigd’). Also another quote from Khalid on the nefarious role of Moroccan family members. Friends and family members are part of a criminal infrastructure.